Biden at State

By BEN SMITH

01/22/2009 02:59 PM EST

With the suggestion that he was offered, and turned down, the job Hillary Clinton took hovering in the air, Joe Biden's presence at the State Department hints at the complexity of his role in this administration.

He has no formal or statutory role at the State Department.

Yet he's the immediate past chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And these are the days in which turf is being won and lost; he has evidently claimed a chunk of it today.

A glimpse at the behind-the-scenes drama here: Biden introduced Hillary. But Hillary doesn't talk about herself as part of some troika with Biden and Obama: The phrase, which she hits hard and repeatedly, is "the President and I."